A story that lasts almost 3000 years and is pivotal to so much of western civilisation requires a chronicler of well-nigh unattainable erudition , who can write with the skill needed to prevent readers from succumbing to a literary version of stendhal syndrome .
During the great recession of the 2010s , by contrast , our policy leaders narrowly debate fiscal and monetary questions with much greater erudition , but have adopted a cargo-cult mentality with respect to the question of future innovation .
Racy and meditative , romantic and realistic , the book is as brilliant as patrick leigh fermor 's a time of gifts , but with its erudition more lightly worn and as alive as kerouac 's on the road , though without a whisper of self-aggrandisement .
Dickens said real children went out with powder and top-boots ; and yet the children of dickens 's time were simple buds compared with the full-blown miracles of conventionality and erudition we raise nowadays .